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Hi everyone.
So my local store is going to run a 'tale of many gamers' scheme soon for fantasy as their 40k one is just closing up. Iv just returned to the hobby recently and have been focusing on 40k orks.. mainly because I havent done green skins before and because of the Black Reach set.
I have good memories of fantasy games, and cant decide which army to collect for this 'tomg' event, basically a bunch of the customers will be building a new army gradually over a few months and writing a bit of fluff to go with them, then swapping tales and battling as their forces and stories grow over time.

I have no idea how the new edition plays, and while winning isnt really important.. its nice to stand a chance! I dont need to have the power house army if such a thing exists, I do like magic and massive creatures though.
I love to paint, and model/convert, dont mind a learning curve army or an easy to pick up army.

Years back I collected Dark Elves and Bretonnia, so perhaps will avoid those now, but I'm not against the idea of doing them again... I dont have my old collection anymore so will be starting from scratch.

I'd love to hear suggestions, tips/advice, propaganda to convert me to your race and what have you

Edit:
I do however still have these old 80's D&D Chaos Warriors
Perhaps theyd be useful in a warriors of chaos army
Theres 7 with a hand weapon and a little notch to mount shields, 3 with two-handed weapons, 2 with dual hand weapons, 1 that looks more like a marauder and 1 with a spear minus the tip ... potential standard bearer

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2012/02/15 02:15:01

You didn't give a lot on your play style, which is probably most important. Or theme.

Nearly a standard answer, because it's so safe, is Warriors of Chaos. You can convert and convert on top of your conversions. You got some big monsters. They got a crazy amount of units available, I think the most in the game--and if you add in the new Chaos Dwarfs, they probably got the most by like 50%. So really if there's any kind of style you want, they can do it. You just have to like Chaos meanies.

From a rules stand-point, they are extremely good. I just never liked the fluff concept of basically mortals bowing and scraping to maelevolent gods who really don't amazingly care about them.

All Chaos Lords, if they don't die or become Daemon Princes, grow up to become strippers to finally get some attention from father figures.

Play style well I dont have one yet. I've not played a game of fantasy in well over 8 years. I'm open to idea's

All I'm sure I want is a competant (perhaps formidable even) caster or two and a nice big monster of some sort.

Chaos Warriors hasnt really took my fancy fluff wise before, but they do have some lovely figures.
Not having the rulebook for fantasy yet, the Island of Blood set seems like a no brainer tbh although the high elf figures probably wouldnt be my choice units in a high elf army. I dont know much about skaven, what are they like? how do those grey seers compare to other casters?

Those old warriors are sweet, they'd make excellent chosen. Though they might be a bit short these days.

I've always had a soft spot for the guy with 2 axes, some of these figures are older than myself! they were gifted me from my uncle my first time round with the hobby some years back, and when the bulk of my collection went I held onto a lil box full. Theres a handfull of others, a Minotaur , a handful of orcs and goblins. couple of bugbears,some dwarfs, some townsfolk including a damsel, a stagecoach driver, a messenger and a bishop. but those didnt look as suitable for a warhammer force now, all a bit small like you said :(

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/02/15 03:56:12

Skaven are a horde army. So lots of cheap rats. Got to warn you, in WHFB, "nice big monsters" are referred to as "nice big targets." With mega spells able to wisk them away or war machines punch holes in their faces or hordes of cheap infantry able to keep them there effectively doing nothing. They aren't as good in 8th edition.

I say go to the main Warhammer page and read up on all the armies. They have a bit of fluff on each. Though they also say basically the same things about each (they look great and play great and are very fearsome!). It's not like they're going to say, "this army sux, don't buy it."

I dont mind painting a horde army infact I quite welcome that, my wallet might not but thats not an issue... itle just take longer to collect I guess (win for the goal of any hobby I guess)
I've been having a good stare at the armies page and what figures are in each lot, but not really having much of a clue about what is powerful, useful or compliments something else well ingame etc.
Based on what I'd like to paint I'm coming down to Skaven, High Elves, Bretonnia, Tomb Kings or Lizardmen.

Skaven being in the starter set makes me lean that way too. The Bell and Wheel contraptions look nice, and the whole dirty rats ethos might be fun for the fluff part of the Tale of Many Gamers project this is for.
Am considering getting the Island of Blood box and then expanding it with the battalion box before looking at the more specialist choices on offer if Skaven is indeed the path. This warpstone bussiness looks interesting though

that would give me 80 clanrats, 4 Rat Ogres and their handlers, 20 Plague Monks, aswell as the characters and weapons teams in the starter box ... to a no-knowledge person that seems like a good start to build from? or should I be looking at a different approach? I'm no sure on the plague monks.. no idea what they do tbh but a big number of the basic rats sounded like the right way to go?

Yep that's certainly a good start, possibly even get two battalions: 200 ratmen is pretty decent. Having that many models on the table has a palpable psychological impact. Plague monks are tougher than clanrats and frenzied so they hit harder too. I quite like them, especially with a priest. Skaven get some very nice magic and I never leave home without a grey seer. The curse of the horned rat is guaranteed to draw out scrolls and such, there's a reason it's called the dreaded thirteenth spell!

And Oromë loved the Quendi, and named them in their own tongue Eldar, the people of the stars. - Quenta Silmarillion

“It is plausible that these observations may have been set forth at some time and, perhaps, many times; a discussion of their novelty interests me less than one of their possible truth.” - Borges

Im going to go with Skaven this time round I believe. (Still a couple of weeks to change my mind though)
200 rats you say? I had a look on the gw sites sample armies for skaven, From what I can see a large unit of basic rats accompanied by smaller units seems a sound enough start?
maybe a 40 and two lots of 20? or would you do two lots of 40? .....is a block of 80 going too far? muhahaha
the first stage of this TOMG event is going to be a general and core units to go with I would imagine, but i dont have all the details yet

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/02/15 15:23:09

I run 2 big clanrat units with 3 smaller slave speedbumps, so personally I'd go 40 clan and 2*20 slaves. I'm still stuck in a 7th ed mentality with my skaven though since I've just been abusing msu/asf with my high elves so far in 8th. Probably 2*40 would be better, that way you have 2 hordes and can use both weapon teams from iob.

And Oromë loved the Quendi, and named them in their own tongue Eldar, the people of the stars. - Quenta Silmarillion

“It is plausible that these observations may have been set forth at some time and, perhaps, many times; a discussion of their novelty interests me less than one of their possible truth.” - Borges

Maybe chaos the dark gods have cookies But seriously you have super awesome looking models ( warriors and lords and heroes and such).
Cool fluff that is super easy to build on.
Many different themes of armies. For example everything being the same mark so essentially having your army devoted to one god using all his strengths.
All monster army works too horde of trolls, dragon ogres, shaggoths, spawn, and more.

The chaos lords and heroes are among the most powerful in fantasy. Casting powerful magic or just hacking other races lord and what not into little chunks.

If you like cool looking models that have quite some detail, an army that oozes fluff and something that can put up more than a good fight when it comes down to it.

Automatically Appended Next Post: Also the battalion is a great buy everything in there is pretty useful.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/02/16 07:55:02

Overview of the WoC army book.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/388667.page#3171854 Ralin Givens is the chaos to my warriors. Ra Ra Ra go team awesome I mean chaos Tzack Vahr Zhen's unholy followers.
all hail Howie Mandel deal or no deal it dosnt matter tzeentch wins
Khorne flakes part of a good breakfast when you plan to kill maim and burn all!!!

I have been looking at Lizardmen, but the Slaan and the Stedgadon are the only figures that really took my fancy in their range :( I'm not too sure how many saurus warriors I want to paint just to get 2 pieces I really like As for the chaos I did always plan a chaos army based around these models (if their scale holds up against the others that is), but that was way back when they were using the realms of chaos book with characters and retinues of beasts, demons and warriors all together that 2 headed dragon was always on my wishlist though hehe.

Iv got a rough idea of what this skaven force might include,
going for Island of Blood in order to get a rulebook and some figures on the cheap and then adding to it with a couple of battalions, a plague furnace and one of those plague catapult/warp cannons
this would give me 3 blocks of 40 rats, a block of 40 plague monks to push the furnace, 6 rat ogres and their handlers, and the characters / big toys.
I noticed that theres no figure for the poison wind mortar, except the one in the starter set. I dont know what is worth taking or not as far as those weapons teams go, should I be thinking about one in every block of clan rats?
with the furnace,monks and a catapult I could easily play up to a pestilens theme Natrually all my planning is probably going to go out of the window as soon as the rules for the monthly progression of this event turn up lol

Edit: So I went down to my local GW store today and grabbed an Island of Blood set and I must say there's some lovely figures in there, the elven mage and the skaven warlord especially are standing out from the others to me, even on the frames still

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/02/16 19:11:57

They sure are good looking. And they actually rank up too, unlike my monkey rats...
I think four big blocks would be rather unwieldy, and think you need a couple of expendable slave units for redirection and baiting duties. Don't forget the giant rats you'll be getting either, they're good for the same or flanking etc with their higher movement.
it's certainly not necessary to have a team for each clanrat unit but they are quite handy. The wft is the classic go-to but more expensive, and the ratling gun can put out plenty of hits too. A doomflayer packs a hell of a punch (and is the only one to have a brand new, separately available model) while the mortar has the advantage of being able to stay out of enemy los; great considering that they're unlikely to survive any shooting at all. I haven't experimented enough to give definitive ideas on which is best, but generally it's more effective to take two or three of the same imo, if only for redundancy purposes. For further and better information I refer you to the under empire (dot net)

And Oromë loved the Quendi, and named them in their own tongue Eldar, the people of the stars. - Quenta Silmarillion

“It is plausible that these observations may have been set forth at some time and, perhaps, many times; a discussion of their novelty interests me less than one of their possible truth.” - Borges

I've been thinking about using the Ogre Kingdoms Gnoblar Fighters as my slaves, either those, or just having Clanrat boxes painted up with less uniform to the clothing or something to represent them being slaves as opposed to clanrats.

I am undecided if the slaves will look better as skaven figures or some other puny creature (like the gnoblars).

For now though I'm painting the High Elves from the Island of Blood box, attempting to save the rats for when this event starts at my local store (march 10th that is btw so not long anyhow)

The Prince on Griffon is where I've started, just kind of experimenting, trying to pick up my old habbits aswell as using the airbrush kit that I've got to hand.

It was sprayed first white (gesso primer) and then burnt umber as a base coat, then a multitude of layers of drybrushed bleached bone, bestial brown and a 50/50 mix of the two, with washes of a dark brown ink and a golden brown that I mixed up between stages of dry brush. washes were both brushed and sprayed on ; I find spraying gets a light clean coat and can be shaded with really fine layers, while brushing it on is useful to shade the recesses.

It's a bit glossy right now because of all the washes, but I plan to apply a topcoat once Im happy with the entire figure, so that will even and dull down the shine the elf rider will be started once I'm happy with the griffon, doing it this way because I'm spraying and too lazy to keep masking on small figures hehe.

Yeah, can't help but love those skaven critters!
I've been reading around a bit about playing the game with them and from all accounts it seems I should be taking a bell instead of a plague furnace, but the model is too cool... I may have to get 2 and make both lol.
I'm a little bit daunted about having 200 rats sitting in a painting que so will have to do my best to stay motivated to keep ontop of that, and perhaps devise an effective but speedy way to knock clanrats out so i can concentrate on the more special parts of the army more without leaving the bulk behind.

I'm not entirely sure why I went 40k first this time round (recently back into the hobby after about a decade away), because I always enjoyed fantasy more in terms of the figures and the game. But alas I picked up AoBR a couple months back and started to add to the orks and marines. Now the local store is doing this event for fantasy (marketing scheme to get us to collect new armies) which has spurred my interest in fantasy again, knowing I'l be able to get a few games with people who dont already have thousands of points in their army (they may well have others on the shelf though).

For quick painting, the manager at my local game store claims he can paint a box of 20 clanrats in an hour :-o
Told me a whole story about when the Skaven figures were last renewed. Apparantly his area manager casually asked him about painting Skaven and then got him 'a few' models to paint up for some of the other stores in the area... its said he painted up 26,000 points of Skaven to be store armies for 4-5 different stores haha, he said by the end he couldnt do it anymore and his wife had to help him finish.
I'l get him to run me through how he was painting them next time I'm at the store.

I doubt he used an airbrush, perhaps just for a base colour if anything.
I think I will be though, theyre just too good for washes, base coats, fades and shading on larger pieces - all the power weapons on my space marines fade up from deep red to clean white on the tips it certainly looks very different and more uniform to a brushed fade (perhaps im not so hot with a brush though)

I havent took any paint to a Skaven figure yet, but I'm doing it in my head and it goes something like this;

Spray the whole lot black,

then drybrush all the metals boltgun first, then chainmail or brass or tinbitz depending on what the item is and what I think it should be made from.

then paint all the fur and flesh areas with calthan brown and drybrush in tallarn flesh.

and put some foundation colours on the fabrics (undecided on what colour yet, perhaps the standard red, or purple, maybe yellow... whatever but a foundation paint in my chosen theme colour.
Drybrush wood areas with bestial brown.

and then spray the whole lot again with a brown wash, maybe 2 coats. (maybe Il try this devlin miracle I keep reading about on here).

and then drybrush everything in the same colours (keeping the flesh lighter than the fur - but the same colours I suppose) and then lightly in the highlight colours for each one. and finally pick out the things like teeth and eyes and little details.

Probably wont be an hour per 20 but I expect it will be quick and look reasonable.

I've actually begun this army now, stage 3 of the tale of many gamers campaign started this Saturday just gone.
I've got A few units of Clanrats, a Warlord and a Scremaing Bell all painted or half painted. And some Rat Ogres and Plague monks awaiting some colour.
You're all welcome to follow my progress in the blog I'm writing as I go (there's a link in my sig). (I can't do 20 Clanrats an hour, but 40 in a few painting sessions is quite doable)
And I would like to thank you all for help and input given in this stage of my army.